Dragon Age - The DLC Debate

October 19th, 2009, 14:18

Dragon Age fan blog GreyWardens.com tackles the DLC issue in this editorial:

Alot of the arguments about the DLC coming out on Day 1 revolve around the idea that BioWare/EA are releasing a game without all of the content and forcing users to pay for the rest of it. This isn’t the way it is though; The DLC are extra content that do not detract from the main story line/quest line if you do not have them – they are nifty little ‘cookies’ that can enhance the game, or not – your choice. The timing is also something that people are focusing on – but it seems that many forget that the game was set to be released in early October to start with, the release date was pushed back (for polishing I believe) and just happened to fall into line with a date that the DLC would be ready.

Once I receive my retail copy I'll install the game and then I'm going to look online if there are any patches or free DLC I can get. If there should be something like that I'll download and install it. Then I'll play the game. And if I actually finish it and like it enough so that I care about additional content then I'll go looking for it. If I don't like the game than I won't give a damn.

See, it's very easy to manage that DLC stuff. Just listen to me. And buy my upcoming DLC eBook (DLC because you don't have to wait until I post somewhere to read my wise words) - "How not to get distracted by DLC".

"This isn’t the way it is though; The DLC are extra content that do not detract from the main story line/quest line if you do not have them – they are nifty little ‘cookies’ that can enhance the game, or not – your choice."

TRANSLATION: We know that you know that we are trying to charge PC gamers like console gamers ever since Mass Effect and this time we REALLY believe that we have a perfect candidate to force people into buying crappy addons instead of a true expansion.

Think of it as our horse armor for DA. To top it all, you CAN buy horse armor (available for 1000 point..err, 15 bucks for PC gamers). Also, playing games like RISEN and Divinity 2 is evil. Stay away and don't even THINK that you have a choice.

I have a strong opposition against artificial limitation of things - no matter whether it is a "Collector's Edition" in terms of Audio CDs or a press-only specimen of a game … or whatever.

If I was producing something, I'd demand that there would be only ONE version of it, and that WORLD-WIDE !

Not a thing like with the musiccal family-band of The Corrs, where there are almost unique releases in almost every country … Or music CDs that are available only in Japan and no-where else (like with Cindy Lauper, for example) …

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by ortucis
this time we REALLY believe that we have a perfect candidate to force people into buying crappy addons instead of a true expansion

"Force" people? What, are the DA cops going to kick in your door, grab your credit card, and download stuff for you? I bet your car has about 906 doo hickeys that the auto makes FORCED you to add on hanging off it too, right?

Apparently when bioware said ALL pre-orders get the memory band they really meant some pre-orders get the memory band.

I pre-ordered from gogamer in August and since it was linked from the official pre-order page I figured I was good to go. Not so much, apparently gogamer doesn't get the promised memory band or any of the "special" items. Now that we're getting closer to release there are a lot more sites that are offering all sorts of different items.

The whole thing is so confusing and so stupid I'm considering canceling my pre-order all together and just waiting for the GotY edition that will come out in 6 months with all the junk included.

One more reason to wait for the goty i guess. That recent trend of certain developers deliberately crippling their game to sell dlc (broken steel anyone?) is really disturbing. I think that the customers need to send a clear signal to the developers, that this is NOT okay.

They want maximum profit with minimal effort - and they're hardly the only ones to practice this.

I'm not going to spend anything on DLC until I see the actual game, and then if the core game is REALLY good - I'll consider giving them more money than I'll doubtlessly deem the DLC to be worth. It really depends.

Mass Effect DLC was a travesty, really, but I'm sure it was a smash in terms of revenue vs. effort - so I can hardly be surprised they want to continue on this popular path.

I don't see them crippling the game, though. They spent all this time developing a powerful editor and streamlining the content creation. Combine this with DLC and you have a money making machine. It'd be VERY naive to expect them NOT to take advantage of this.

Guys what's the big fuss? I think too many people are still peeved about the whole 'horse armor' thing. The game is supposedly 40+ hours and some people have a hard time that they already have more gaming goodness ready to get if they want it? Even if I wasn't getting the CE edition I think I could live with or without it.

Like the editorial said some people seem to have forgotten that this game was pushed way back so they could release the console and PC edition at the same time.

If you have a problem with a day 0 DLC then more power to you. Write your congressman As for me, I'll just wait for them to release it and then play the dang thing.

I'm a bit surprised to see, this, however, I can't say that I'm very surprised. EA and Bioware a business, after all.

What this means if buy the game after April 30th, I don't anyone but EA and Bioware really know as of yet?

From what I have heard and how I understand this stuff to work is that the DLC will be tied to your EA master account. This means that the EA master server that handles the DLC registrations is going to refuse DLC codes that are entered after 4/30/2010. There is (IMHO) only one possible explanation for this: The DLC will be free for all (registered users) after that date because there is no way that they can control when or where someone buys the game or if and when people decide to install it or register or activate their codes.

What is DLC? Is that the part of the game that you torrent because they didn't have room for it on the game disk?

In all seriousness, I just buy whichever version is at the site that has the cheapest price. The DLC isn't going to make or break a purchase for me, no matter what is being offered. I want the box and the map, so I'll be getting a hard copy, but the rest is irrelevant to me.

Originally Posted by Moriendor
From what I have heard and how I understand this stuff to work is that the DLC will be tied to your EA master account. This means that the EA master server that handles the DLC registrations is going to refuse DLC codes that are entered after 4/30/2010. There is (IMHO) only one possible explanation for this: The DLC will be free for all (registered users) after that date because there is no way that they can control when or where someone buys the game or if and when people decide to install it or register or activate their codes.

I can already see how this will end up in the future.

*Loads up his Dragon Age copy and 200 DLC's including the award winning "New Faces" pack in the year 2013*

ERROR420: EA MASTER SERVER NOT FOUND. PLEASE CONTACT TECHNICAL SUPPORT OR ROAM AROUND IN VARIOUS FORUMS SEARCHING FOR A WAY AROUND TO PLAY THE GAME YOU BOUGHT A LONG LONG LONG…. LONG TIME AGO. Thank you for playing DragonAge.

ortucis

It just reminded me (when I read ortucis' post) very much of goodies packed together with magazines (gaming, music, etc.) nowadays.

I wonder where this will lead to ?

At one point in the future, I guess, DLC might have become so normal that it ain't any too for getting attention anymore.

Companies might see this, then, and stop DLC … - and pull out something new off the cuff, something fascinating and interesting at the same time.

But that might only be in 10-15 years, I guess. We are seeing imho the very first spring blossoms on the morning dawning lawn of the DLC growing up.

If this becomes a fashion, the lawn might be full of them.

["Morning dawning lawn" - must keep that in mind … ]

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

With everyone complaining about dlc I guess I should have complained about this a long time ago. It is really stupid that New World Computing locked out content and if you want to play that content you have to buy both Might and Magic 4 and Might and Magic 5. It was really stupid and I am going to whine about it all the time until they change that and allow me to play the content without buying both games.

Originally Posted by ortucis
"This isn’t the way it is though; The DLC are extra content that do not detract from the main story line/quest line if you do not have them – they are nifty little ‘cookies’ that can enhance the game, or not – your choice."

TRANSLATION: We know that you know that we are trying to charge PC gamers like console gamers ever since Mass Effect and this time we REALLY believe that we have a perfect candidate to force people into buying crappy addons instead of a true expansion.

Think of it as our horse armor for DA. To top it all, you CAN buy horse armor (available for 1000 point..err, 15 bucks for PC gamers). Also, playing games like RISEN and Divinity 2 is evil. Stay away and don't even THINK that you have a choice.

They were doing DLC many years before Mass Effect. They had DLC for Never Winter Nights 1. You could buy Premium modules for around $7 a piece.